Today's news of OPEC's failure to reach consensus on new production quotas reminds me of one of the more popular news clips used to disparage Donald Trump's supposed flirtation with a Presidential run. In it, Trump claimed he would simply demand that Saudi Arabia raise oil production to help us lower gas prices; when pressed as to what leverage he might use to attain such a result, Trump simply asserted that he would get what he wanted.
Now, far be it from me to defend Donald Trump's mockery of the political process (or satire, depending on how one views things), but embedded in that word salad of narcissistic cliché was a point, even if one Trump accidentally stumbled upon. The United States currently provides substantial arms and/or security guarantees to the Saudis, as well as other OPEC members Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (and, obviously, Iraq, though that's a different relationship). The U.S. also has smaller-scale deals with other OPEC members such as Algeria, who last year announced a plan to start focusing more on Russian purchases. U.S. arms and personnel provide the regional stability needed by roughly half of OPEC to operate, and people want to imply there is nothing we can do to influence their policies? What, then, is even the point of providing that security, if not to coerce higher oil production figures in order to subsidize or consumption habits?
Luckily, though, even if we are't willing to apply this leverage (publicly, anyways), our Middle Eastern allies seem to get the point. The 4 Gulf states mentioned above were the ones who supported higher production quotas, and in fact have already been operating well above the current quotas for some time. Even if Americans and our leaders are unwilling to be realists about our interests, it seems like states who share our interests still can be.
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